NEWS

SOUTH PAVILION

MORVILLE HALL

BRIDGNORTH

SHROPSHIRE

WV16 5NB

01746 714009

The Editor

Brixham Gazette

Fore Street

Brixham

S. Devon

Dear Sir,

I write asking your help, that through your columns I may learn a few more facts, concerning my late father, W.G.H. Jenkinson, whose life I am attempting to record.

From about 1936 to the middle of the war, he and our family lived at Parkham Towers on the Knowle. It may have even been known as ‘The Knowle' in earlier Victorian times. In 1942/3 the house was severely damaged by a stick of bombs, some of which failed to go off, but those that did, removed doors, windows and parts of the roof. The attack was intended for shipping that was rounding Berry Head. It was a perfect lining up of the tall tower of the house, the Church tower and the headland around which all shipping had to go when coming up coast from Dartmouth. I vaguely remember the clock on the church tower being stopped at 6.15 by a canon shell from a Me 109. ‘Luftwaffe' aircraft frequently used this line up of pinpoints to deadly effect. As a child I well remember adult conversation discussing the coincidence of the intelligence on the timing of the attacks and the arrival of Belgian fishing vessels, some crews of which were not so friendly

The house became uninhabitable and the family evacuated to Shropshire, after which it was repaired and taken over by the Admiralty and became known as the ‘Wrenery'. Whether this was an official or a local name is not clear.

WGH, or ‘Will' as he was always known, took over part of the Brixham fishing fleet, manning it with crews who were either too young or too old to join up. He had set up a business under the name J B Trawling. An office on the quayside was the administrative location for vessels with names like ‘Enterprise', ‘Ellen Louise', and others. His real delight, before the war, had been his boat ‘Galatea', but she too became a chattel of the Navy and her cream and mahogany outline familiar at her mooring in the outer harbour, became a battleship grey overnight. She served as a coastal patrol boat until she was damaged by bomb blast that shivered her timbers as she lay on the mud opposite Dartmouth Naval College.

If any of your readers can remember the vessels mentioned or WGH himself and can corroborate or enlarge on my childhood memories, I would be delighted to hear from them.

Yours sincerely,

Barry Jenkinson